Not anymore!
by Blueberryteeth
Summary: Aang is no longer the last airbender. Omi, Kimiko, Raimundo, and Clay are in a world where they are no longer the only ones in control of the elements, either. I haven't decided where this is going yet, but I thought it would be interesting.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: None of these awesome characters are mine :(

"Dude, it's so cold out here. Kimiko, could you like, conjure up some fire with your hands or something?"

"We _told_ you it was gonna be cold, Rai." Kimiko said while Raimundo shivered behind her. "But I think Clay packed an extra coat in his backpack." Clay knelt down on solid ice and slung the backpack off his shoulder. Before it hit the ground a green dragon jumped off.

"Excuse me, but when do _I_ get bumped up to first class? You kids ride on me, (a fairly smooth ride, if I do say so myself), but when I ride on you, you throw me off!" Dojo inched along the ground indignantly.

The plain tan bag slid a few inches on the ice, and so did Raimundo as he as he scrambled to open the clasp on Clay's backpack. In a few seconds he pulled out a fur coat of the same color. He held it up to see if it would fit him; looking over at Omi, he knew that there was a possibility it would swallow him whole.

"Well partner, it ain't leather, but it'll keep you warmer than a rat in a haystack." Clay assured him.

Just as Rai pulled the heavy garment on over his red tunic, he saw Omi go sliding across the ice. His coat was in a pile to the side, as it would just drag behind him. But… it would have stopped him from turning into a Popsicle when he landed headfirst in a snow bank off to the side. He made a stifled "oomph" noise and lay still.

"Star Hinabi, fire!" said a voice, which melted the snow. Pretty soon everyone was standing in a puddle of water.

"Thanks, Kimiko, I owe ya. Fire's never a bad thing to have when you're in the next Ice Age," commented Raimundo.

Dojo felt a tingle run through him from his head to his tail. For most people (or dragons) it would be from the abrupt change in temperature. That, or… "Guys, I think I'm picking up a Shen Gong Wu." He scooched over to the backpack and withdrew a scroll. Unrolled, a foggy circle in the center showed the last magical item that had revealed itself. The name appeared on the bottom. By this time Omi had shaken all the snow off of his round head, and everyone gathered around Dojo.

"The Crown of Sound", he read. "It allows the wearer to amplify, reduce, or mute any sound he or she wishes." A stick figure demonstrated this on the scroll until Dojo shoved it back in the backpack. "It should be close. Maybe it's around this cliff somewhere."

The cliff loomed behind the snowy bank that had just had Omi's face in it. The four Xiaolin warriors had been following it ever since they landed; it served as a barrier from the worst of the blizzard. Kimiko's feet felt soaked inside her shoes from walking through the ankle-deep snow, and the indentation in the top of Clay's hat was no longer there. There were about five inches of snow on top.

"So, uh, Omi, since you're a Wudai warrior now, you don't use the Orb of Tornami as your primary weapon anymore, right?" Raimundo asked.

"No. I do not think I will be needing it anymore. But it sure did help me grow into a _strong_ warrior." Omi responded.

"Well I think it misses you," Rai continued while they were walking. "It swelled up to the size of your head."

"Oh, you are asking for it now! I do not have a big head!" Omi yelled, his voice rising.

"Come on, give him a break," Kimiko encouraged. Raimundo stopped and pointed ahead.

"No, I'm serious! Don't you see that big ball of ice ahead of us!" Kimiko, Clay, and Dojo, who had gotten back on Clay's shoulder, also halted beside Raimundo and Omi. In front of them stood a gigantic spherical iceberg.

"Well that's strange. There's no way this is from the blizzard." Kimiko thought. "If the Shen Gong Wu is in there, how are we supposed to get to it? The ice looks thick and shows no sign of melting." She sighed. "I hope it's not some Heylin trap."

Dojo's tail tingled again. "But the Wu isn't that way. I'm getting signals from this direction, over to the right."

"You sure about that? I mean, you have been doing this for a long time, maybe you're just not as sharp as you used to be," suggested Clay.

"I'm sure it's this way!" Dojo insisted, waving his arms in that general direction, then quickly rubbing his goose-bump-covered arms.

"If we split up we can cover more ground. Dojo, you can go with Raimundo and Kimiko to find the Shen Gong Wu, and Clay and I will check out the ice-ball." Suggested Omi.

"Sounds like a plan," Kimiko agreed enthusiastically.

Further away from the cliff the ice was beginning to break apart, so the two warriors had to hop from piece to piece. Dojo rode on Raimundo's shoulder. The wind let up, so the snow stopped blowing so hard in their faces. Kimiko looked up, down, and scrutinized each pile of ice or snow to make sure it wasn't concealing anything.

"You sure it was over here?"

"Yes! Never been more sure," Dojo replied.

"I've got an idea," said Raimundo. "Falcon's eye!" The golden eye modified his vision; the snow disappeared and he could only see flat ground. Flat, except for a whitish-gray object. Raimundo pulled the Wu away from his eye.

"I got this one," he said. He dashed across a wide expanse of ice to his left where he saw a circle under the ice. It looked frosty and transparent through its cold covering. "Darn it, Clay has the fist." He reached into his red tunic and fished around. His hand touched a smooth object with a spiral etched into one side. "Ah! Serpent's Tail!" Dojo and Kimiko watched as Raimundo dove into the ice. He felt a strange sensation as his body faded. Then he passed through the ice; it was unsettling how he couldn't feel it inside him (not that he wanted to). After going down a few feet under the thick ground he pulled up and wrapped his insubstantial hand around the crown. In less than a second he was at the surface and felt like he could breathe again.

He casually wiped the crown on his red shirt, and it shone in what little light there was. Dojo suddenly grew about 50 feet in length and as tall as a building.

"I wonder what Clay and Omi have found," he said, climbing on. Kimiko jumped on in front of him, and Dojo swiftly lifted off the frozen tundra.

"Now that I can sit down and relax…" Kimiko took out headphones from her top, and slipped one inside her ear. The other one dangled as she used the cord to pull out the actual mp3 player. It wasn't very slim. Her dad had given it to her years ago, and she couldn't wait to get an upgrade.

While Raimundo waited, he looked out over the side of the dragon at all the rocks, mountains, and cliffs below searching for two mini-warriors. He put the crown on his head so he didn't have to hold it anymore.

"Can you see them?" Raimundo asked Kimiko. She bobbed her head back and forth, but she wasn't nodding. "Kimiko? Ki-mi-ko. Can you hear me? Crown of Sound," he whispered, exasperated.

The noise level in Kimiko's ears steadily got louder without her realizing it at first. Then she jumped in her seat and fought to pull the headphones out of her ears. By now her music was so loud that even Dojo could hear it with the wind rushing by his ears.

"What? What's that? Are we being chased?" Dojo started freaking out and started flying faster. Kimiko already looked shaken, and her eyes got even wider as she held on tighter to Dojo's back. Raimundo would have fallen off if it weren't for his quick reflexes.

"I must be sitting on the volume or something…" she thought at first. Her thoughts changed when she saw the crown on Raimundo's head, though. "Hey! Take that off! It's not a joke! You could have blown my eardrums!"

At this point words had started to make their way to Dojo's ears and he figured out that it was the sound of music, not pursuers from the Heylin side. He slowed down, but it didn't completely calm everyone's nerves.

"Well, you weren't listening to me. And besides, who listens to K-Pop when they're 500 feet up in the sky anyway?"

"My headphones are probably broken now, thanks." Kimiko held them up by the cord and they hung limply over her hand. Come to think of it, Raimundo could hear a crackling noise coming from them.

Aang was lying down on the broad back of Appa, enjoying his freedom. The clouds looked nice today. There were an awful lot of them, though. Suddenly he big sky bison made a flying U-turn.

"Where are you going?" Aang asked, surprised.

Down below, Dojo and his passengers recognized the cliff that they had come around earlier and the strange ball.

"I see them now!" Dojo said. "They're behind the ice!" He flew around the big ball and landed on the ground behind it. Landing made a fairly deep imprint in the snow; Dojo was stuck in it when he returned to his normal size, so Raimundo let him climb on his shoulder.

Kimiko was the first to greet her friends. "Hey, guys!" she waved. She walked over to where they stood. "Rai found the Crown. Did you find anything?"

"To me this just seems like a regular iceberg. But Omi found footprints." Clay said.

"Are you sure they're not yours?" asked Kimiko.

"They were here before we got here. But I cannot figure out who would be walking around in such a cold place at this time of year. Or what these big prints are," Omi said, pointing to a set of larger, round prints. His eyebrows bunched together and he put his hand up to his mouth in a "thinking hard" pose.

Kimiko glanced down at her own stylish fur-lined boots, and at the others' heavy boots. They were obviously way too big to have made the footprints scattered around in the snow.

"Appa, that's where we came from. That's the wrong direction!" Aang tugged lightly on the reins trying to encourage Appa to turn around. He squinted his eyes and saw four figures in red. "Turn around!" He pulled harder. "Fire nation!"


	2. Follow the Sky Bison

There were very few times when Appa ignored Aang. Knowing confronting Fire Nation soldiers would make everything worse, the young airbender hopped off the sky bison with his glider and flew alongside him, nearly crossing his path. Even though the war was over, Aang wasn't sure how loyal firebenders would react to meeting the one who had ended their nation's rule. He waved his hands, trying to get Appa to slow down. He looked back, and saw that they were almost to the iceberg. A strangely familiar iceberg…

"C'mon, Momo, tell him to slow down!" Aang shouted. Sure it was a little difficult to hear with the wind rushing past your ears, but Appa should have been able to hear Aang. The giant ears of a sky bison are like the ears of a dog; multiple times better than any human's. Even so, Appa kept going until he landed on the ice, and Aang rode the rest of the way on his glider. Normally he would have hidden, but after all the time he spent trying to communicate with Appa it was too late. Instead he resolved to pull his hood over his head.

He still snuck a peek at the strangers. "You're not soldiers-you're too young. And I'm pretty sure the Fire Nation would never make their soldiers wear kimonos-" he thought. Accompanying this thought was a picture in his head of a soldier in the dark-haired girls outfit, but with a few more frills.

For a few seconds no one talked, and an odd clicking noise from Momo was the only thing that punctuated the awkward silence.

"And what kind of contraption have you brought this time, Jack Spicer? I know it is you! Or I know you know him! You will not get away with it this time!" The bald one said.

"Huh?" Before Aang could say anything more, Omi jumped at him with his arm outstretched. Aang let a gust of wind slide him backwards across the ice to dodge the attack.

"Wait! I'm not your enemy anymore! I won't fight!" Appa made a low groaning noise as if to agree with him.

"Anymore? Then who are you?" Kimiko asked.

Aang debated telling them who he really was. Every time someone found out he was the avatar, either something really bad or really good happened. People would celebrate his arrival, try to take advantage of his powers, or try to capture him. And he almost always had some extra responsibility tacked on to his journey. He liked helping people, so of course he didn't mind saving villages from monsters or soldiers, but it was tiring. Occasionally he would make new friends, and that was on the best of days. Katara and Sokka had decided to stay for a couple months at the Northern Water tribe, and Aang missed them. If he made friends with these people, he'd have someone to keep him company. So he made a compromise in his own mind. "Well, I have to take my hood off sometime. I'll only tell them who I am if they ask. Which they probably will, because these tattoos are a dead giveaway. Although, what's the worst that can happen?"

"I'm Aang," he introduced himself. "This is Appa," he said, gesturing towards the white bison, "and this is Momo," he pointed to the lemur.

"Whoa, dude, how'd you do that? Do you also have control over the wind?" asked Raimundo. He thought he was the only person who could do that. If he wasn't, Master Fung would have picked someone else, right?

Aang figured it was time to stop being shy. "I can bend…all the elements. I'm the Avatar."

The Xiaolin warriors all gasped at once, and their breath was visible in the frosty air.

"So, you're, like, legendary, right? You know it takes a heck of a lot of chi to have power over all four elements. I've never heard anything about you," the skeptical Brazilian said. Omi's eyes teared up and he respectfully bowed to Aang.

"Wait a second, Omi," the girl's voice interrupted. "I'm sure he's not even real. An avatar is a virtual representation of the player in a video game."

"No. _The_ Avatar. The one who helped bring down the Fire Nation?" After a few seconds had p assed and blank looks appeared on the Xiaolin warriors' faces, Aang made a guess.

"Are you even from the Fire Nation?"

"That's a funny way to refer to the state of Texas, partner. I'm Clay," said the boy with short-cropped blond hair.

"Kimiko."

"Omi."

"I'm still suspicious."

"That's Raimundo." Raimundo glared.

"Umm…nice to meet you?" So they weren't from the Fire Nation! Aang inwardly cheered and thanked whatever spirits were watching over him. He wasn't really sure which ones, though, they could have been his past selves, bears, or even cabbages. Still, how could they know nothing about what had been going on in the world for the past few years?

Appa had calmed down, so Aang figured it was time to fly the couple miles left to the Southern Water Tribe. He turned his back on the red-clad teenagers and pulled himself up the furry mountain of white hair and used the wide saddle straps to haul himself onto Appa's back. More straps to his left were tight around several bundles of clothes, scrolls, and other goods that he was supposed to be delivering to the smaller sister tribe.

Out of habit Aang said, "You guys don't need any help with anything, right?" He smiled brilliantly, (which could have come off as cheesy if anyone else had done it).

"So…do you live here?" asked Kimiko.

"No…but I think this might have been where I came out of the ice a long time ago."

"Well, it looks like a good shelter." The curved icy walls kept out the worst of the wind, and also made their voices echo slightly.

"You probably shouldn't stay here. There's a village not too far away. I'm going there to drop off supplies for my friend. I don't think Appa would mind a few extra passengers, would you?"

"Nah, we've got Dojo. But you could take this chatterbox along with you, if you want. Either that, or he could 'ride the waves'." Raimundo pointed to Omi.

The tattooed airbender just noticed Dojo who was hanging back, and had been silent up to this point. A sudden heat surged through him as his body remembered the dance and formations he had performed with Zuko many months ago, spinning slowly and lightly, but always keeping the proper stance so he didn't fall. The fire flowing through him was empowering, but it still wasn't his favorite element. Another element that added to the almost surreal atmosphere of that one afternoon was the dragons, though, and Aang was told those, the red and blue beasts, were the last in the world. His lips managed to overcome their slight numbness, too, and he celebrated this by half-yelling, "Is that a dragon?"

"Yes, I am," Dojo replied.

"It's just-there are only t-I mean, they're extinct." Aang didn't want to endanger the safety of the remaining dragons.

"Sure you don't see us a lot, but we're not extinct. In China, we're practically worshiped. We get our images painted in gold on the walls, and we even have one out of every twelve years dedicated to us," Dojo informed him.

Aang had a hunch. How could these people be so different? "Where are you from? Are you Airbenders?" Raimundo said 'also' when he mentioned airbending, so they could be Airbenders. Inside, he was hoping they were descendants of the monks he had grown up with before he left.

"We're not 'benders," Kimiko said, "but we can each fight with a certain element. We usually use objects called 'Shen Gong Wu'." Aang held up his glider questioningly.

"_Magical _objects."

"This is magical…more or less…"

Kimiko continued. "We're from a place over…Dojo, which way is the temple?"

"I'm not sure, I'm not sensing it anymore."

The four warriors could now look down at the unfamiliar world Aang had told them about. _Only_ four nations? Clay wondered if they stretched across the same area that continents did in their universe. He couldn't see any Earth in sight, just ice. It didn't feel right, not being able to bend what you were standing on. In the Earth nation Aang mentioned, there were many people that shared his talent. His thoughts mirrored Raimundo's when he first saw Aang bending air. Wasn't he the only one who could…

Omi was so hyper he was almost jittery. "Wooohooo! Hahaha! I can finally have a lot of mini mes without using the Ring of the Nine Dragons!" He tried to stand up, but his foot slipped on Dojo's slippery scales and Kimiko had to catch him.

"Calm down, Omi. It's hard to see through all these clouds," Dojo said.

"Yeah. Why didn't you just lasso the sky bison?" suggested Raimundo.

"You know I can't do that."

"I thought you said you could rope five pigs at once when sliding down a haystack!" Omi chipped in.

"I mean, it just wouldn't be right. Tying up Appa would be like roping Dojo."

"No, thank you!" came the voice from the front.

Raimundo didn't really hear this conversation; he was too busy enjoying the wind flowing through his hair. He was unconsciously doing tricks with a yo-yo he had brought with him in his shirt. When it came up the string he could feel a cool, smooth surface. If he looked in his hand while he flipped the toy over, he probably wouldn't have even seen the monochrome swirls or dots on either side of it. They blended in almost perfectly with all the small dips and ridges in the ice.

A few shouts came from up ahead. They were muffled at first, but they slowly made their way to Raimundo's ears and snapped him out of his trance. He smiled. Far below, children were playing with weapons, having snowball fights, or warming up by the fire.

"Going down," Dojo announced.

Speaking of playing with toys… "Crap!" Raimundo's face flushed as he quickly tried to hide the yin yo-yo in his pocket. All of them had learned the hard way not to play with the Shen Gong Wu, but the Wu had been acting up lately. Not anything major; trivial things like the Lotus Twister refusing to return to normal, or the Orb of Tornami leaking water.

At least everyone below them seemed welcoming, unlike Aang. The Xiaolin warriors could use some hospitality.

A/N: I know I've taken forever to update this, sorry, but I'm not on a regular schedule yet. If I was, I wouldn't trust myself to follow it:) I'll try harder in the future!


	3. Chapter 3

The water nation got cold for the warriors pretty fast, but their visit went smoothly. Aang was a little lost because apparently its inhabitants had changed the layout while he was gone. It was meant to be "more efficient". There were now separate huts where food was cleaned and separate huts where food was stored. These were the ones right alongside the water, and they were usually filled with buckets of fish or fish guts.

Down by the water, Omi used his water-manipulating skills to catch about five fish at once and got drenched in the process. He froze almost immediately, but a nice boy from the village offered him a fur coat and the two of them warmed up together by the fire while the fish flopped on the ice.

Aang passed by and picked up a fish, then Kimiko, then Raimundo, and then Clay. The last one was left there until Momo prodded it with his foot and still decided to leave it. They spent the evening situated around the fire in one of the huts further inland, sitting on animal furs. The boy Omi met spent his time entertaining them all with stories of his tribe. Omi knew from earlier that the boy couldn't waterbend, so he tried to keep the conversation away from this subject the whole time they were talking. Eventually it got awkward with the little warrior cutting everyone off mid-sentence, so everyone just decided to lay back in the snow and warm their feet.

Dojo was anxious about returning to his own world and wondered how long they had been gone, so they left the Water Tribe behind to continue their tour of Aang's land even though Omi could have stayed longer.

The boy who had befriended Omi picked his coat up from the ground and went back outside to catch more fish. He wasn't sure what to think of the waterbender, but he knew he was nice. He realized what he had done last night, not wanting him to feel left out. He thought bending was really cool, and he definitely wished the fire-lighter could have showed him her ways.

* * *

><p>"So guys, how long have we been here anyway?" asked Dojo after 10 minutes of flying in the same direction, indistinguishable clouds hovering over them. They were flying over water and everything was beginning to look the same.<p>

"Time flies when you're smelling the roses!" Omi added, not having a care in the world at the moment. He just let the fabric of his shirt flap in the wind, which he was enjoying because he had no hair that could blow into his mouth.

"Could be an hour, hour and a half. Who knows how far apart anything is in this place?" Raimundo chimed in.

"Okay maybe he does," he said, pointing ahead to the small figure on the sky bison's back. "But he could have told us!" He shouted this last part, hoping Aang could hear him above the wind and take the hint.

"I don't really enjoy flying blind like this," complained Dojo. He was used to having some inkling of where he was headed.

As it turns out, Aang was planning on taking everyone to the Fire nation, thinking that once the strange visitors experienced more of his world they would understand it better. He actually felt bad about his fear of the Fire Nation earlier now that Zuko was ruling.

They arrived in the foreign nation about an hour before sunset in a dusty, remote clearing and Aang advised Dojo to hide himself. He figured he could curl up in a jacket pocket or something, but he did want to see the city. Appa was apprehensive about entering the city. He groaned when led closer to the limits and hid as best he could behind some bushes.

Clay followed him, his boots kicking up dust clouds.

"You okay, partner?" The white bison seemed to be frowning with his big mouth, so he continued: "Aang, you got anything that'll cheer your fellow up? I know cows like grass and horses like apples, but I'm not sure that carries over to...flying creatures."

The avatar, from the clearing, assured him that apples were fine if he had any.

"Does it matter which kind? Apple pie is best with Golden Delicious."

"I've never tried apple pie, but the Fire Nation is so big I'm sure somebody sells it somewhere."

All five teenagers looked hard again to get a clear idea of the direction of the place they had spotted from the air-on the lower slope of a hill.

"Um, this doesn't look like a nation of fire to me," said Raimundo.

To most people, i.e. the citizens of other nations during the war, he would have been right. No black steam from the naval ships crowded the sky, and soldiers had withdrawn from all the inland towns, leaving them peaceful except for the occasional skirmish between neighbors. But there were a few scattered temples here and there, a few other specific jobs, and scattered logos on a few of the towns structures that let visitors know exactly who they were with.

"You're right. It just looks like a village. The scarier parts are on some of the older islands, but I have friends there. Also, some of these people are just normal people. Not everyone can bend," Aang explained as he started walking downhill, his staff giving him the silhouette of a grass, unkempt and devoid of any pattern earthbenders could have created in it except for new footprints, brushed their legs as they headed towards the small houses and huts below.

"Clay?" Kimiko called.

"Don't worry, I'm comin'!" he shouted back. "I just wasn't sure if Appa was feeling too good."

"I told him to stay here since we're not staying the night in the city. I figured we could get a look around right now and then come back up soon for some rest. But now that I think about it, I guess I could bring back some apples."

Aang's shaggy companion licked the Texan affectionately.

The person next to Appa decided to stay there for the night as he was tired and he couldn't keep his eyes from drooping. The fur he was leaning on, dirty from any bugs he had flown through, was softer than his pokey hay at home. After his fellow warriors left, he fell asleep against the snoring airbending animal with the brim of his hat pulled down over his forehead.

"Bending. That is a cool name for controlling the elements," flattered Omi. "I will see if Master Fung would like to use that term. It is so much more exciting than 'controlling the elements'."

By this time the benders had all made it into the quiet village. The first house they passed allowed a couple windchimes to hang over the front porch, but no breeze rattled their chimes. In every one there was a centerpiece in the middle that held a dancing flame. It was these that lit the humble streets of these proud people while they slept.

Most of these villagers worked hard at their jobs during the day and jumped at any chance of rest they got. Even Aang was surprised at the stark difference between their lives and Zuko's. Raimundo, Kimiko, Omi, and Aang all enjoyed the warmth provided by the burning flames. Dojo could also feel it through Kimiko's shirt pocket.

"There aren't many people to meet right now, but I could show you a temple. You have temples where you come from, right?" asked Aang.

"Of course! We actually train at one," said Kimiko. "Since we're out this late I'm really glad we won't have to get up early in the morning for training."

"I know. It's so nice to be out here and feel free," added Raimundo. All the stands lined up along the road were closed and shuttered and didn't seem anything more than plain. The wood looked cheap, but sturdy. Aang recognized that any one of them might still have food inside, and he thought that when he got some, Appa would be happy that much sooner.

Between the folds of his robe he could hear the jangling of a few coins he had picked up long ago. It was annoying to carry them this way instead of safe with his luggage on Appa's back, but he didn't have shoes, so he did what he could.

The coins jingled faintly and wasn't any louder than a flaming wind chime would have been in a light breeze.

The green dragon yawned.

"Is anyone else hungry? I can't help thinking we should get some food on the way. Temple food tends to be a little bland."

He poked his head out between the folds of Kimiko's pocket, but put it back as there wasn't much to see.

The tattooed boy skipped ahead of his tired company and quietly blew the covers open on some of the fruit stands.

The wind cushioned the wooden shutters before they could bang against the stands and wake anyone up. Inside most of them were a few chairs and boxes, left empty from the day's sales and shop owners wanting to protect their fruits from bugs or thieves.

Aang blew the window covers shut, leaned against the wall, and slid down to the ground. The Xiaolin warriors continued on and looked down the alley around the stand. The town wouldn't have been any darker if it had been draped in a blanket.

The alley led back out into the field, but this part was relatively well-tended; the grass was greener and shorter and grew around a fruit tree.

"Who's there?" a voice called.

"It is I, Omi, an unknown warrior in these parts but not any less—"

"It's the avatar," blurted Raimundo.

After the voice spoke a few more words, even Dojo could tell it was coming from above. He peeked out and saw an apple tree. Theleaves didn't rustle until Aang use his airbending skills, which still didn't reveal anything.

"Is anyone there?" the quiet voice yawned again. "Hold on-the avatar? My mother told me that you saved the world after I was born, but—whoa—" the girl nearly fell trying to get a good view "—I was too young to remember, so I wasn't sure if you were real."

"Yeah, I'm real," confirmed Aang.

"Um, hello?" started Kimiko. "Do you live here?"

Dropping down to the lowest branch, the girl nodded. Aang brought her to the ground on a cloud of air.

"My house is that one at the corner." But she caught herself and then said: "I mean the corner next to this one, out of sight. But my dad lives on that hill over there, so I could be at any of those houses at any time. So you probably won't find me again."

Even though she was new to the world, the young short-haired girl was used to moving around a lot like her family did during the war, and just couldn't stay in one place. She sometimes came back to the tree to pick apples for her mother to sell, which she wouldn't admit to enjoying.

"Would you mind if we took some apples?" asked Kimiko. "Aang'll pay."

"No, it's okay. I'm tired, anyway. As long as you can get them yourselves, they're yours for free."

Omi observed the fruits hanging above him. Although they didn't look too high up, he couldn't even scratch the bottom of one. The little warrior didn't stop jumping, though.

"Omi, man, come on, be more dignified," the Brazilian chided.

Before he could continue, Kimiko used the Lotus twister to snatch three apples. All of them returned to the town after Aang left coins by the base of the trunk. To get back to clay and their campout, Aang led the the same way they had come.

Kimiko noticed a dropped windchime and looked around to see if any of the houses were missing one. As far as she could see every house had these fiery beacons, so she put it in her pocket for safekeeping: a souvenir.

When they got back to the clearing it was late, and Dojo insisted that the pagoda would have been much more comfortable because tatami mats were better than dirt. Clay didn't stir as they arrange themselves for the night.

"'Night, Appa," Aang whispered.

Kimiko curled up next to Appa, but he scooted away and Clay fell back on the ground, still snoozing. She put out a hand to pet his head, but the bison backed up.

At a loss, she curled up in the nearest tree like the girl she had just met. She seemed nice.

Under the paw of Aang's companion, she thought she could see their bag. Apparently he had shifted onto the Shen Gong Wu. Wait. Was that...was that the Reversi Mirror under his heavy paw? Was it broken, or just the fire girl's mind playing tricks on her?

* * *

><p>The sun rose and Appa groaned loudly, sounding like a foghorn in the morning mist. Not many of them remembered arriving here because it was so early. The young airbender was completely baffled as to why there were glass shards in his bison's paw. One was particularly big, and Kimiko felt terrible as he drug it out. The worst part of the wound was covered by white fur, but that didn't hide the pain.<p>

Last night's suspicions had been right. The mirror had shattered. Chase Young and all of the Haylin villains were still in China as far as she knew, so they might not have needed the Wu for a while.

"Stay calm, Appa, just stay calm," Aang encouraged.

Kimiko's arm was numb from sleeping and red from the bark, but she could move it enough to press the buttons on her wrist communicator.

"Master Fung?" she asked. "Can you hear me?" This was the first time her father's technology had failed her; he had even upgraded their watches before they left. Only static filled the screen and softly crackled.

"Clay? Rai? Omi?"

The brown-haired boy was the slowest to wake up; in this way he reminded Aang of Sokka. He had a feeling something was wrong, though. Clay wasn't too mad about finding himself flat on the dirt.

Kimiko hopped down from the tree, glad she hadn't removed her shoes last night. As it was her feet could feel rocks poking them from underneath. She rummaged through her bag and retrieved her phone before pulling the drawstring to close it again. The mobile device couldn't find any service on the seemingly isolated island. It went back in the cloth bag.

The avatar placed the bloody glass in a pile to make it safer. Opaque blood covered the design that had graced the magical item, and it didn't even look special anymore. Just like a hideous weapon.

"Well _obviously_ the Reversi Mirror broke," stated Raimundo.

"It's one of the Shen Gong Wu," Clay clarified, petting Appa. "Sorry about that."

"Oh, yeah. While we were gone, a nice girl gave us some apples," said Kimiko, walking over to feed Appa. He still shied away.

"I guess Appa doesn't like me," she mused aloud.

The farmer's son grabbed the apple after Kimiko set it on the ground, wiped it with his shirt, and saw it crunched by the sky bison without incident. Kimiko seemed to be right, although she didn't know why.

"Uhhh..."

The shortest of the group stood at the edge of the clearing, drooling. He hadn't known that Shen Gong Wu could be broken. It didn't seem right, and it made the new world seem like it really ws strange enough to come out of some yo-yo.

"Shouldn't we fix it? Master Fung will be very disappointed when he hears abouthis broken looking glass," warned Omi.

"It's not exactly a looking glass," said Clay. "Just a mirror. Since we fight with it, we don't really use it that way."

Kimiko had used it that way a few times, and it was surprisingly helpful.

Birds tweeted around Appa's head, symbolizing just how worn out he felt. They then landed at his feet, pecking at various seeds and pine-cones that had fallen during the night. A few curious ones flew over to the glass, where Raimundo shooed them away.

"Do you really think Master Fung knows about this? I mean really, sometimes it seems the guy has a sixth sense about stuff like that," Dojo pointed out.

Steering clear of the sharp remains of the metal object, Aang climbed over his other leg and found his bag, which he pulled a sheet out of to bandage his paw. He hoped it would heal soon. Really, the mirror was so small it shouldn't have been more than a thorn in his companion's side.

But the thorn bush had to be fixed, and Dojo insisted tape wasn't an option.


End file.
